Maria Metsalu (1990) is an Estonian choreographer and artist, who finished SNDO (School for New Dance Development) in Amsterdam in 2016. She is creating visual performative works that regardless of the chosen medium places her own body in the epicenter. She views performative experiences and performing deviance as possibilities through which one may reflect upon the state of things and become inspired to act, formats through which collective memory could be created. She is interested in an emancipated audience and ways this activation can be achieved, the ways the position of the spectator can be challenged, destabilized or abolished altogether. She views performance as a radical space, capable of creating new meanings, new ways of looking and seeing. Besides her solo work she is one of the founding members of performance collective Young boy dancing group and has worked together and performed for Tino Sehgal, Michele Rizzo, Nils Amadeus Lange, Kris Lemsalu and Gelitin amongst others.

Her solo works have been shown in the contemporary art center kim? In Riga, Art In General gallery (as part of Performa17 in New York), Kunstraum in London, deSingel theater in Antwerp, ICA theater in London, Baltoscandal festival in Rakvere, Nanterre-Amandier theater in Paris, Kiasma theater in Helsinki, Alt_Cph18 art fair in Copenhagen, FLAM Festival in Amsterdam, Les Urbaines festival in Lausanne, Impulstanz festival in Vienna, Tallinn Art Gallery, 3hdFestival in Berlin, Center d’art contemporain – la synagogue de Delme etc.

As of June 2023